


Headlights

by paratoxic



Series: Two-Part Avengers Angst [3]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Absent Parents, Affairs, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Car Accidents, Character Study, Complicated Relationships, Deaf Clint Barton, Denial of Feelings, Drug Use, Emotional Manipulation, Engagement, Heavy Angst, Insomnia, Love/Hate, M/M, New York City, Oblivious Steve Rogers, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, Tony Stark Is A Drug Addict, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, War Veteran Bucky Barnes, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-28
Updated: 2019-04-28
Packaged: 2019-08-11 12:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 18,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16475465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paratoxic/pseuds/paratoxic
Summary: After his parents draw their last breaths on The West Side Highway, Tony takes to spending his days sleepless and addicted to popping pills. Bucky Barnes enters the scene as an Afghanistan war hero and a mess, crashing with his boyfriend Steve.A lunch date and some Xanax is all it takes to drag Tony, not a hero, but also a mess, back to New York. Tony is restless and selfish and wanting, willing to keep a secret - because Bucky figures his boyfriend needn’t know a thing.





	1. The Crash

**Author's Note:**

> Check out my [Tumblr](http://paratoxic-ao3.tumblr.com/).

> ‘But I take you as my center, and you are my bliss, not the wealth that you might bring me, not the social prestige, but you.’

* * *

 

** 2005 **

 

Bucky is beginning to wish he was anywhere but here. He presses his back to a barely-standing wall, layered with destroyed sandstone that had probably been caught in gunfire or the odd explosive. Base camp is just a few miles north, a constant reminder of his lack of progress in advancing through the dry Afghanistan countryside. His uniform has never weighed so heavy on his limbs before, every morsel of warm camouflage seeming to scream in horror as a flood of armed soldiers march across in his direction. His life is a slow motion car crash.

 

Already, he can taste the fear barging through his senses, but it’s not his own - it’s his comrade’s, his friend’s, as the Private stands several metres away, tied loosely to a wooden post, blindfolded and heaving out breaths of nervousness. The man had been secured there, though he would not have dared to run, hands behind his back, stripped of all weapons and defences. He is sentenced to death by firing squad. Bucky can hardly hear it.

 

It’s illegal - the claim that the man planned to desert was far-fetched. Bucky can’t imagine what it’s like to have a multitude of bullets ripping through your skin and obliterating your insides, even if it might mercifully kill the man in a split second. With any luck, their aim is without flaw, and Bucky wants to hang his head in shame for thinking that that’s what constitutes as ‘luck’ now, but he has been in the war for a few long years now, and he knows it well.

 

It’s illegal, but it’s happening anyway. It’s happening and nobody is ever going to know about it, or even really care, because the Private has no immediate family and certainly governments around the globe will turn a blind eye. Bucky will always have it in his memories though, how unfair a punishment this is, just because the man talked about how much he wanted to go home. This is how the world is permitted to repay him. The law is powerless.

 

Bucky’s lieutenant waves a gun in front of the brunette’s face, and Bucky fights hard not to flinch. The middle-aged man puffs leisurely on a cigarette, waving his men into position as they prepare to carry out the immoral execution. Bucky waves the smoke away from his nostrils.

 

“Don’t be looking so uncomfortable, Sergeant,” the lieutenant advises in a hushed voice and the soldiers raise their weapons, take aim, “this is protecting our country, this is. We do what’s best for our people, don’t we? Nobody’s gonna miss this good-for-nothin’. It’ll all be over soon.”

 

Bucky reaches into his pocket and toys with the pocket knife by his leg. The handle is warm, burning with kept rage and the blade tries to slice at his fingers. The men he works with - dies with - are like brothers to him, and he’d go with them over the horizons until the day they were forced to part. He supposes he’s reached the horizon, but the sun is too bright to dare to look up at the sky and all that’s left is the remnants of a sandstorm. It all fell apart.

 

“Sir,” he starts to say as the Private shuts his eyes and waits, and there’s nothing anyone can do about it unless they want to face much the same fate for threatening to tell-tale, “he is my friend. He is our friend. Please.” He doesn’t know what the use in pleading is, because the lieutenant will not change his mind.

 

They should all be equally guilty. They’re good people at heart, really, undoubtably loyal and brave and decent, but they’ve all taken away lives, partook in a war of corruption and greed and horrible, horrible things that will become a part of them all. They were coerced into thinking their enemies were nothing but evil, but they’re not; they’re just scared and angry like everyone else. Bucky should face life in prison, not a parade. The very thought makes him feel sick, but not this - not death - not for anyone. Not for his friend.

 

The lieutenant, of course, ignores him. “You got anything left to say?” He calls out loud enough that the Private can hear, and the man facing his death seems to almost quake in his boots.

 

“I think myself glad,” says the Private, “it’s ending here for me, instead of home. Maybe I owe you one.”

 

Bucky can’t tell if it’s a lie, but if it isn’t, he understands. Going home means dragging out the remainder of a normal life, doing normal things, sleeping without a gun and waking up wondering why you aren’t wearing your boots. Patting your head in search of a helmet. Wondering why you’re completely alone in silence. Missing the feeling of a fight. What is there back home? Not much.

 

Not much but Steve. It’s the only thing that keeps Bucky going - an image of golden hair and a brilliant smile welcoming him back to the States. Being with Steve is a simple pleasure; they’re just friends, the most harmless of relationships, but they always have each other in any state and one day Bucky hopes it can progress to something more. It’s hard to realise he might be a long way off of the day they reunite, but it has to come. It has to. Bucky refuses to let this goddamn war get the better of him.

 

“’S always gonna be war, Sir,” the Private goes on louder, “think you’re being the hero and all, but you aren’t. There’s gonna be plenty more ‘heroes’. It’s never gonna stop.”

 

And yes, he’s right; there are no heroes, only bad things. Bucky doesn’t want to think about what inevitable bad things are coming his way - whether it’s death, pain, loss, all three. He imagines Steve comforting him through it, but he fears it wouldn’t be enough. He’s going to have this enormous hole in his heart like someone’s thrown a grenade at his chest and blown it to pieces. He doesn’t know if Steve will be able to stitch that wound up.

 

“We can cross that bridge when we come to it,” says the lieutenant as he gives one last signal and the weapons fire, striking the Private across his torso with such force Bucky has to stop himself from covering his line of sight and his ears. The man slumps and Bucky imagines that behind the blindfold, his eyes are wide and glossy as he dies.

 

Bucky wants to scream at the world: ‘Pigs! I’m done doing what you say.’ But it’s his pay here that means he can afford to provide for his family, the people he loves. He presses himself further into the wall, wishing he could disappear into it, conflicted but hiding his anger well. Nobody can make him feel safe anymore.

 

The lieutenant puts out his finished cigarette and lets out a long sigh. “Well, I could do with a coffee. Then retirement, with any luck.”

 

The next day, when they’re sent out on their next mission, the lieutenant is seen running from a small army of opposing soldiers, their own side terrified and outnumbered. Bucky can’t contain his anger then - the goddamn hypocritical coward, bolting at the sight of danger to his own life when he’d more than happily murder someone innocent - so he doesn’t turn away.

 

Paying no attention to the petrified foreign civilians cowering at his feet, he lifts his bandana to cover the expression of hatred around his mouth, and raises his machine gun. Charging straight into No Man’s Land, he faces the so-called enemy alone, though as he shoots down every last one of them, all he can think about is how he wants to cry.

 

*

 

** 2010 **

 

“HAPPY NEW YEAR!”

 

Tony watches in utter dismay as the last of his money gets tugged across the table and lands in the arms of some fat drunkard. He shouldn’t be surprised, really - this is what he gets when he gambles high which, naturally, is a fairly regular occurrence these days. He quit drinking excessive amounts of booze a few years back, but it probably wasn’t a good idea to replace strong liquor with popping pills. The anti-anxiety medication (which, to be fair, is legally prescribed… kind of) fogs up his brain something terrible, too, which is why he just lost half a million dollars playing Blackjack.

 

Seriously, Blackjack. The game that requires absolutely no skill or time and consists entirely of luck, and he’s left staring at his inheritance getting tossed away because he scored a twenty-three. Twenty-goddamn-three. At least if he had chosen Poker, he could’ve counted the cards but no, he’s stubborn and he stumbled right over to the first table at the casino he could find.

 

Tony loosens his tie from around his neck and gets up, beginning to feel the embarrassment as dozens of eyes fixate on him. The undesirable predicament strips him of more than wads of cash - it steals his dignity, too. Maybe this life lesson should be shameful enough that for the foreseeable future, at least, Tony would be inclined to stay far away from the gambling tables. He knows this not to be the case, though. The sporadic win is worth the guilt.

 

“Thank you, Vegas,” he mutters under his breath as he double-checks his wallet one last time (still nothing) and pushes the doors open to leave, “here’s to another decade of failing miserably.”

 

His private jet is really just around the corner, and Tony figures he’ll live. Sure, he just bet and lost a large chunk of his savings but he has plenty more, all left to him after his parents’ death. Of course, he would give it all back in a heartbeat if it meant they were still around. Another misfortune on the list of things he wishes he could change.

 

“Sir,” greets his pilot with a nod when he approaches the plane, “your Dom Pérignon is waiting in the ice bucket as requested.” The uniform-clad man doesn’t do well to hide his dubious expression, taking in the site of Tony’s crumpled suit and strangled-looking hair. Realistically, the last thing he needs right now is a drink.

 

Tony realises this too, and only makes a face, choosing to say nothing except, “I apologise for keeping you on New Year’s. We’ll go straight home now, I’ll let you get your rest.”

 

“It’s no trouble, Sir.” The pilot shuts the door behind him and disappears into the cockpit as Tony sinks into the leather interior. The champagne glares impassively at him, daring him to take a sip, change his mind, pour a tall glass of it. Tony’s head swarms with the aftermath of his buzz. The anguish-fuelled feeling has been on his tail for an hour or so now.

 

They take off like a slow murder, and Tony keeps his tongue far from the taste of the wine. He doesn’t need the memory loss that accompanies mixing drugs, anyway. When they’ve reached a high enough elevation that the twinkling lights of Las Vegas fade into the vast expanse of the desert, Tony gets up and mysteriously asks for a time comparison in terms of New York City. The pilot informs him that the east coast is three hours ahead of them.

 

Screw it, thinks Tony as he makes a grab for his phone and dials the number of one of his closest friends. At first it goes to voicemail and Tony rolls his eyes in exasperation before trying again, starting to twitch his fingers into tapping against his leg. They’re shaking a little as the Xanax wears off, and his eyelids droop in tiredness (and it’s not that he gets a comedown, it just makes him feel weirder than usual).

 

Finally, there’s an audible click, then silence, then a voice on the other end of the line. “’Ello?” Steve mumbles, his tone dragging with sleep. There isn’t so much as a sliver of irritation, and that’s part of the reason Tony likes the guy so much - he rarely gets mad at you.

 

“Hey, sorry, I know, it’s late,” Tony rambles, and God, it must really be wearing off now because his heart-rate has simultaneously skyrocketed yet also thickened with exhaustion.

 

“Tony?” Steve breathes and there’s a beat as the blond probably holds his phone back and assesses what the time is. “Christ, you don’t say. Can already feel the January blues.”

 

Tony resists the urge to snort at the irony. If he mentions to Steve how utterly depressed he feels at the moment, the wounded animal look would manifest itself on Steve’s expression twenty-five hundred miles away. Tony manages to keep his secrets internal. “Listen—”

 

There’s a small jolt as the plane leaps through a trail of turbulence, and it shakes Tony down to the bone. For a moment he’s rendered speechless, unable to react to the sincere apology his pilot offers him, thinking only of what it might mean if it was more; if it was an entire storm and the plane spiralled out of control and then, just like his parents’ car, they crashed. He swallows and clears the ridiculous thoughts from his head.

 

“Anyway,” he goes on, catching his breath, “I’m going to catch up on some sleep of my own but afterwards, when I’m back, maybe we could meet up.” Because I feel horrifically lonely, he wants to add but doesn’t. The self-pity is outweighed by pride.

 

Steve seems to awaken fully at this, and his voice is clear and chirpy when he replies. “I was going to suggest the same thing. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

 

“Oh?” Tony counters suggestively. His comment, surprisingly, isn’t rejected.

 

“Yes, my boyfriend. How about lunch - day after tomorrow? Or tomorrow, technically.”

 

“I’m aware that we’re in ‘tomorrow’ already, sorry,” Tony throws it hastily with a cringe at the not-so-subtle reminder of the time, “but that works. I’ll make reservations at Per Se or something.” His mouth waters as he trails off into thoughts about food; about a moulard duck foie gras, slow-poached straight from Hudson Valley… Christ, he’d make a bad vegetarian.

 

Steve makes a startled laughing noise. “Tony, please. I was thinking your local coffee shop. Hell, the Rustic Table if you’re feeling real fancy. I think it’s in Hell’s Kitchen…”

 

“You’re really gonna turn down one of the best views of Central Park? Bill’s on me. Last chance.”

 

“Tony! The taster menus alone for that place are like four hundred dollars.” Steve probably wants to mention about how Tony wouldn’t even get a reservation but likely decides against it, knowing full well a Stark gets whatever the hell he damn well pleases.

 

Tony gnaws on his lip. “Actually, three hundred and…” He shakes his head at himself, letting it go. Goodbye, Kaluga Royal caviar. “Dusty Table it is—” He ignores Steve’s protests about getting the name wrong and turns so he can look out the window, admiring the lack of a view, “—I’ll see you on Saturday, noon. And…?”

 

“Bucky,” Steve answers for him, “Bucky Barnes.” The name sounds familiar but Tony doesn’t bother to push it. “You’ll like him. I’ll see you. And promise me you’ll let us pay for—”

 

Tony very quickly takes the opportunity to hang up before he’s swearing any oaths he can’t keep. He figures he should get some sleep, now, since he can fit at least four or five hours in before they have to start thinking about landing. Perhaps his dreams will be plagued with headlights and what ifs but when his eyes close, however, he rather curiously finds himself in the line of sight of a hunched silhouette, and he realises the car only swerves off the road in order to save the shadow’s life.

 

*

 

Sunday comes quickly and Tony pops three mg of benzos to calm his nerves. No, not to calm his nerves - there are no nerves - that’s a pathetic excuse. He’s swallowing the pills because he’s addicted to them, and there’s no point in trying to cover the fact up. He hopes, at least, Steve won’t notice the dazed look on his face. The press hasn’t caught onto his habits yet, so there’s no reason America’s Golden Boy should.

 

The restaurant - cafe? - isn’t far at all from where Tony stays up in his Midtown penthouse. He has a driver take him anyway, mostly because the weather is less than desirable. It isn’t even close to raining but the temperature is less than thirty degrees and Tony doesn’t feel like scowling at the clouds outdoors much today (damn him, he sounds like an old man). The name of the place is fitting, the interior hosting a large array of different kinds of wood and old-fashioned-looking light fixtures.

 

A waitress comes to greet him at the door with a generic smile before she does a double-take, realising who she’s about to serve. “Mr Stark,” she squeaks, then points loosely behind her, “we are… very busy—” And it’s true, because the place is brimming with chatty locals enjoying their early lunches and servers brushing past them all, and Tony hopes he doesn’t have to bribe her, “—but of course I can get you a table.”

 

He nods in relief and she leads him to a table near a window, hastily plucking the ‘reserved’ sign from next to the salt and pepper. If Tony was a half-decent person, maybe he’d refuse to take someone else’s reservation. He’s not, though.

 

“This is our menu,” she says and hands him something with fake coffee stains all over it, “are you expecting anybody else?”

 

“Yeah, I’ll call on you when we’re ready.” He shrugs tightly, uncaring if it’s rude. Either the waitress is too starstruck by meeting one of the wealthiest men in the world to notice, or she politely dismisses the tone of the comment. She smiles again, true this time, and leaves him alone.

 

‘Breakfast served all day’ is the first thing the menu proclaims and it captures Tony’s attention. Maybe Steve was right about coming here. He studies it carefully, pulling it up to cover his face so nobody bothers him about taking a photo, probably using more of his concentration than he should but he can only blame it on the fuzzy feeling in his head.

 

“Tony!” Someone is calling and Tony looks up briefly enough to catch sight of a mop of golden hair. He puts down his menu as Steve makes his way over to them, pulling another man along behind him. Strangely, the customers’ gazes have shifted away from Tony and are transfixed on Steve’s boyfriend, and when Tony sees him, he figures he might understand why.

 

He is truly the most beautiful thing Tony has ever laid eyes on; a man with a tight expression, eyes burning as dark as the unkept waves in his hair. But there is worry there, too, crushed under his irises - worry for something Tony can’t read, shockingly, and he prides himself in being a decent judge of character. He almost thinks the brunette looks familiar. Spidery eyelashes flutter against the barely-there dirt on his cheeks, his jaw carved sharp like the Cupid’s bow leading to his upper lip. Tony watches with skepticism as his gaze flickers downwards and away, and Steve introduces them.

 

“This is Bucky,” Steve announces with a beam, gesturing to his partner, and Tony only grunts before the two are flinging themselves down on the seats opposite him. Steve looks like he wants to place a chaste kiss of public affection on Bucky’s cheek but quickly catches himself, modest and not wishing to make Tony uncomfortable.

 

On the contrary, it’s ironic, since Tony is probably even more gay than Steve. Steve knows this, too, he thinks (maybe Tony isn’t the most outwardly camp guy but Steve’s surely seen the rumours in the magazines and has taken note of the fact Tony has never had a girlfriend) (… he’s partial to casual affairs with handsome men which, justly, is more of a discretion than a notoriety).

 

“It’s nice to meet you,” Tony offers, tearing himself out of his head. The Xanax makes it so hard to concentrate but he is by no means a quitter; as much as he wants to curl up and sleep, he agreed to this. He scans his eyes over Bucky again. “You famous or something? People here seem to like looking at you.” There isn’t a hint of jealousy in his tone.

 

Bucky speaks then, and Tony figures he could listen to the voice all day. “I guess.” Two words and they’re soothing. Tony understands what Steve might see in him, but the more the blond shares a loving glance with him, the more Tony’s heart and stomach sink. This is probably what he deserves for being a playboy: no love, no nothing, since he made his bed and now he must lie in it.

 

“Bucky’s sort of a war hero,” explains Steve and Tony doesn’t miss the flash of something that overcomes Bucky’s expression, perhaps some sort of guilt or shame, “from Afghanistan. It was like one of those movie moments: jumped straight into No Man’s Land where there were thirty men about to—”

 

“His favourite story.” Bucky waves it off suddenly with a bashful half-smile, as if he doesn’t want Tony to hear the rest. True enough, Tony can imagine that as excitable as Steve sounds, it’s probably a little gruesome and uncalled for now that the soldier is back to his normal life. Like the British celebrating Guy Fawkes night. Nothing beneficial seems to come from it now.

 

“How are you doing?” Tony asks to stir up more conversation. “After it all, I mean. Can’t be easy to sleep at night.”

 

“Tony,” Steve sighs in warning at his rude comment, but Tony really can’t help his forward nature.

 

Bucky doesn’t mind and he only shrugs, looking not offended. Just a little angry. “No, I suppose it isn’t.” He reaches out to take Steve’s hand then, lacing their fingers together. “It could be worse.” He fixates his stare on the menu that Tony’s passed over to them, then, but he isn’t really reading it.

 

If neither of them can hear the way Tony’s slow heart beats against his chest with unfamiliar sharpness, he’ll be morbidly surprised. He rubs his palms together and draws the attention back to the fact they’re in a restaurant… cafe. Whatever. “They do all day breakfasts, see.” He motions half-heartedly to the one he’s going to pick.

 

“Maybe I’ll just get a croissant,” Bucky suggests to himself, pointing out the choice that’s a little over three dollars. If Bucky lives with Steve, which Tony safely and rightfully assumes he does, they likely don’t have much money to be spending on fifteen buck ‘early lunches’. Steve worries about his rent all the time, but refuses to let Tony help out.

 

“No, no, not another Steve ‘stubbornly-self-sufficient’ Rogers. Look, we’re all hungry. I’d prefer it if you rent out the place and ordered the chef’s thumb in garlic and mayo. I don’t think I have the heart to watch you drop pastry crumbs over this mahogany.” Tony smooths a hand over the table with pity. He glances between a pained-looking Steve and an stony-faced Bucky. “Let me pay. Seriously.”

 

Steve’s ears are tipped red and he makes a face, the calm before the storm, like he’s definitely going to argue before Bucky speaks up. “The Organic Quinoa looks pretty damn good.”

 

“Good choice. Hey,” he calls on the waitress who showed him to the table before and she skips over with pleasant ease to take their order. He ends up hurtling out something about the brisket without salad dressing and please, if you could, (with a dashing smile) I would like the cauliflower puree as thick as you believe possible.

 

Steve groans in exasperation for the duration of their wait but after they’re done with their drinks, the food shuts him up. He says nothing more about his finances and Bucky seems pleased about it. They eat in relatively comfortable silence, tuning out the ever-excited murmurings of people around them. Tony is sure they’re more directed at Bucky than himself, so he reckons the man must really be something of a hero. Still, he’s sure he recognises him from somewhere else…

 

The vicelike grip on his fork loosens when he’s done and he tugs on his collar. “How’d you guys meet?” He fires off.

 

“Grew up together,” supplies Steve, toying with the tiny vase of flowers on his end of the table, “in Brooklyn.” Before Tony can ask how come they never met before, Steve goes on, “Bucky joined the army a while ago, before I met you. He was away for a while. He’s retired now.”

 

Tony doesn’t point out he’s awfully young to be retired, because he imagines that whatever experiences Bucky’s had - whatever horrors he’s endured - probably made his boss sympathetic enough to send him home indefinitely. The man can’t be any older than his early thirties at any rate.

 

“Anyway, it took us the better part of five years to go from friends to… something more,” Steve continues shyly, “it certainly wasn’t a walk in the park.”

 

“Anyone for dessert?” Tony asks, no longer in the mood to talk about romance. “Or we could go to that little ice-cream place down the block. Or for a walk in the park.” He wants to laugh at himself for hinting that Steve could have so easily chosen someone who isn’t a basketcase.

 

Bucky doesn’t take the comment kindly. “I love Steve, Tony, and I don’t think I’d be ill-informed to assume he feels the same way about me, so watch it.”

 

Steve appears torn like he doesn’t know whether to back Bucky up or tell him off for getting smart. In the end, he says nothing. Tony supposes he deserves it, and that it’s spite talking more than anything.

 

“We’ll pass on the ice-cream,” Bucky says tersely at last when the atmosphere turns tense. Tony leans back and starts muttering about getting the bill. “I’ve got a television interview at three, anyway. We should get going.”

 

“I gotta run to... I’ll be right back,” Steve gets out awkwardly and stands up without really explaining himself to go to the bathroom. Tony watches in amusement as Bucky allows his fists to clench when they’re alone together.

 

“You’re kind of terrible,” the veteran scowls, throwing his napkin on the table.

 

“I have a long sob story if you want to hear it.” Tony suggests with nonchalance. Customers around them turn away, finally, as they recognise the signs of an impending argument.

 

Tony is surprised to see Bucky looking kind of pained at that comment, like he feels sorry for him all of sudden. It irks him to no end. “I don’t,” says Bucky, “want to hear it.” His eyes dart to meet Tony’s. “I have too many of my own.”

 

Tony’s jaw tightens and loosens methodically as he fights another wave of crippling tiredness. He knows it’s not just the medication giving him the side effect but rather the fact he never gets the chance to sleep enough. He can only blame himself. Through the drowsiness, however, it’s almost like his inhibitions plummet.

 

He takes another good look at Bucky, then, the way he carries himself. Tony’s never seen so many layers of defensiveness, all rolled up so tightly together it could be mistaken for fury. He finds himself wanting to get a proper look inside the man’s head, wondering chaotically about what he’s seen in his existence. About the light that Steve must see in the darkness.

 

He’s still stunned by the beauty the brunette opposite him exhibits. The guy is clearly unaware of it himself, hiding behind the wisps of hair that frame his face, a slight amount of stubble visible as if he wishes to cover the microscopic scars dotting the curve of his neck leading to his chin. Tony must admit he has a thing for men in committed relationships - there’s something delicious about how they’d turn their perfect little lives upside down for a quickie on the side.

 

It would be only a harmless crush, though. He’d never dare to act upon his desires; he can control his impulses when it calls for it. And it certainly does, because Steve is his most loyal and true friend and Tony may be bad but, sadly, he is not heartless.

 

Bucky, on the other hand, is something else. After casting a quick glance in the direction Steve headed, he leans over the table, his lips parted and looking soft. He speaks in a dangerously quiet voice. “He told me I’d like you.”

 

Tony grunts in understanding. “He said the same thing to me. He can be so stupid.”

 

“Quit it,” snaps Bucky, “I ain’t sitting here listening to you talk like that about him.” He raises an eyebrow all of a sudden, and the expression is the depiction of perfection. “You are right, though. I don’t like you one bit.”

 

“That makes two of us.” Tony swallows. “Couldn’t imagine how he puts up with you. How he sleeps at night next to a killer.”

 

“Yeah, insult me all you want,” Bucky snorts, “sure, I’m a killer, I’m a monster. You don’t know half the things I did.”

 

“Actually, I don’t know any of the ‘things’ you did,” Tony corrects him with irritation, “I wasn’t a soldier. I wasn’t a ‘war hero’. Huh. How does that make you feel?”

 

That seems to settle it between them because Bucky doesn’t bother to snap anything back at him after that. He leans back just in time for Steve reappearing, oblivious. And if there’s one word to describe Steve Rogers, that’s it. “Are you ready?” He asks his boyfriend.

 

Bucky blinks twice then says, “Yeah.” He pushes his chair all the way in when he stands up and Tony immediately makes the bold assumption that the man came from a strict household; perhaps even abusively so. Bucky pretends to say goodbye to Tony with a smile but it comes out malicious. Steve is none the wiser.

 

“Thanks, Tony, about...” Steve trails off, embarrassed that he isn’t offering money to pay his share of the bill. “Well, you know we appreciate it. I’ll see you later, right?”

 

“Uh-huh,” agrees Tony, secretly hoping the blond brings his lover along in the future too. As infuriating as Bucky is, he sure is something sweet to look at. Steve leads the man outside and the people nearby are blatant in their staring.

 

Tony takes a moment to compose himself before he’s calling on the waitress again. Her ponytail does a little dance as she weaves through the tables to get to him. She smiles expectantly and Tony reckons he might as well have fallen asleep at the sight of it. “I’ll take the bill, please,” he says instead.

 

*

 

God, it happens quickly. Another few meet-ups and lunch dates where Tony whips out his credit card and makes doe-eyes at Bucky behind Steve’s back, and that settles it. Tony is decidedly and undoubtably selfish, and although Steve is his best friend, he doesn’t have to know. Bucky can’t stop biting his lip, judging Tony, looking like he wants to hate him but knowing that his flaws as a human being come in the form of fatal desires, so—

 

Two weeks pass, and they roll into bed together.

 

It’s all tongues and teeth and why-am-I-doing-this and guilt so inflated it could burst a balloon, but Tony lives for it. That first night, his penthouse, the sheets tangled in their legs and the little tinge of pain that keeps him lucid - the drugs coursing through his blood, making him feel like he’s out of his own body. It’s ludicrously mouthwatering.

 

Bucky doesn’t say much, but it’s written all over his face - the love he has for Steve, but the overwhelming need to get away from it all, to mess up his life because it’s what he deserves. Tony maliciously doesn’t comment on it.

 

Bucky goes to sit on one of Tony’s sofas after, shirtless and sweating and running his hand through his hair. Just breathing. It brings a new sense of want to Tony, but he ignores the feeling in favour of simple observation, eyeing the way the so-called war hero is collapsing more and more by the minute.

 

“Don’t even say it,” Bucky huffs, knowing Tony wants to poke fun at how he’s handling things. On the contrary, Tony just wants to say how people do this all the time. Like, really, a lot more than you’d think. That dreaded word: cheating.

 

With so many disastrous connotations, too. You’d have to be purely evil to want to throw away somebody who loves you as much as Steve loves Bucky in favour of a sexual whim. Tony likes the whim, but the world prefers the act of being faithful.

 

“Aren’t you going to crawl home now?” Tony wonders aloud, keeping his distance by leering in the living room doorway.

 

Bucky turns to glare at him, but there is no distaste in the hardly-lit glow of his face, only sorrow. No regret, just self-accusation. “I couldn’t possibly,” he admits, thinking of the way he looks and feels and smells and everything he’ll have to carry on his back now - everything Steve will never know.

 

“So stay here,” Tony invites with a suggestive half-smile, not feeling as bad as he thought he might (thought he should), “you’ve had plenty of time to realise how big my bed is.”

 

Bucky stands up leisurely. His jeans lay low on his hips. “I need a drink. A shot. Or five.”

 

“A shot? What are you, sixteen? I’m teaching you how to make a martini.”

 

“That’s not something hard enough to require teaching,” Bucky protests but raises an eyebrow in curiosity as if he’s never had the drink before. He makes no further effort to move so Tony saunters off to the open-plan kitchen, making sure Bucky can see him preparing the drink.

 

“The key is to use extra gin and make it extra dry. Extra olives, too, if that’s your thing.” Catching a glimpse of the distaste that shows prominently on Bucky’s face, he dismisses the idea. “Or just a twist of lemon.” He dumps some ice cubes from the freezer into a mixing glass and hesitates before adding the alcohol then vermouth before proceeding to stir it. Too quickly, really, but he’s feeling jittery.

 

Once he tips the mixture into a glass, adds the lemon and slides it over the bunker for Bucky to try, he slinks away into the bathroom to search in the cupboard above the sink for what he’s hunting for. His supply is running low (he’s been taking more than usual lately) but it isn’t concerning yet. He swallows the Xanax without difficulty.

 

When he turns around to go back, he’s startled to see Bucky holding the martini and leaning against the opposite wall, looking at him with an expression that’s nearly impossible to read. Tony straightens up like he isn’t a drug addict, like he doesn’t care about anyone else’s impressions of him, but it’s not convincing.

 

Bucky tips the glass up at his mouth and swallows the entire thing in one gulp. Tony stares, impressed, as the brunette puts the empty thing back down and smooths a thumb over his lower lip. “I think I’ll crawl home now.”

 

“Well, how was it?” Tony asks of the drink but once the words have left his lips, he knows that’s not what he wants an answer for. Bucky comes up close, then, towering what must be at least half a foot over him, and Tony feels small in the way he doesn’t want to.

 

“Bitter,” says Bucky, breathing, just breathing, and lust overcomes the concern aimed what he just saw Tony doing, “like you. I’ll show myself to the elevator.” He backs off like running from his problems is an Olympic sport, leaving the billionaire with a choking lump in his throat.

 

“Wait,” says Tony, and he does but without looking back, “you…” You aren’t going to tell Steve about this, are you? He realises he doesn’t need to ask that - of course Bucky won’t tell. Bucky is weird and secretive and not stupid. So he’s a little lost for words. “We’re not doing this again,” Tony finishes at last in a weak voice, and it comes out as more of a question than an assumption.

 

“The thing is, if I come around again, you’re eventually going to have to tell me your sob story,” Bucky deadpans, “and we’ve established that that’s the last thing I want to hear.”

 

If Tony was to just blurt it out now - ‘when I was a kid, I had everything a privileged rich boy could want, but then my mommy and daddy died and left me all alone and now I can’t sleep and I hide behind being hostile and sarcastic’ - maybe it’d give the veteran a reason to stick around. Once they throw themselves in the deep end, they have to learn how to swim together.

 

But Tony barely knows the guy, and he really doesn’t care. Of course, Bucky will feel much the same. He isn’t fooling anyone. Let the man go back to Steve, smelling like sex; it just means Tony’s got more room in the bed to roll around in when he tries and fails to get to sleep. “Well, you better get out—”

 

When he looks up, Bucky is long gone. There was no ding to indicate he took the elevator; he must’ve felt restless and chosen the stairs. He didn’t stop to try and figure out the look on Tony’s face, and Tony is glad. He doesn’t need anyone reading his thoughts.

 

He considers making himself his own martini before grimacing at the very thought - he quit hard liquor, he quit it, or he cut back, he did - and instead waits for the Xanax to kick in. Hopefully it reduces him to a puddle of melted shame on the gleaming carpet, waiting for someone’s shoe to step in him. For someone to run him into the side of the road, too. While he waits, he ponders over Bucky.

 

Tony knows him. Not just in the way that he’s Steve boyfriend and they’ve met more than a few times now and oh, yeah, he slept with the guy, but in some other universe too. Like he’s seen him on the news, his face strung along with his name - and not because of the war. It swallows him and brings him into the pit of his own stomach. Bucky… Bucky, what’s his last name again?

 

Tony scrolls through the contact list on his high-tech phone. He doesn’t want to be alone for much longer. ‘Clint Barton’ shows up and the name brings a fond and genuine smile to Tony’s lips. Of course, he can’t call this friend - the man is deaf, after all - so instead he fires off a text on a whim, asking if he can come over. Or if he wants to come over instead. Tony could make them dinner. Bring the wife and kids.

 

Wife and kids - a scary notion. It should have happened for Tony years ago, perhaps (just take out the wife and put husband, and adoption would be necessary). He has the rest of his life to figure it out, and he certainly knows by now what he’s doing with the casual relationship type thing, but it’s the romance and commitment he has issues with. Who would want to eventually propose to a troubled man hooked on anti-anxiety meds intent on ruining his own life? Maybe he should wait to love himself first before he can truly love others.

 

Clint texts him back a few minutes later: ‘Laura says come round tomorrow!’ The Xanax starts to hit his brain. He leans back before his phone goes off again.

 

It’s another message, from Bucky. ‘Steve wants to know if you’ll come round for dinner tomorrow. No funny business. I made a mistake.’ That one wipes the blissed-out smile straight off his face as he sits up with a small amount of struggle, feeling the room get heavy and dense and dark.

 

Tony tries to type back something about how he can’t, he’s got plans (and for once, he isn’t lying), but his thumbs feel funny so he gives up trying to make sense since Bucky saw him with the drugs anyway. He’ll know he’s affected by them, why pretend not to be? He doesn’t double-check his reply before sending it. Bucky was right - it was a mistake and it’s not going to happen again, and if that means he has to avoid Steve by association, that’s fine. He just wants to sleep, anyway.

 

He closes his eyes.

 

*

 

**2007**

 

The fireworks are monumental; a spectacular palette of colours sparkling and spitting against the black of the sky. All across New York City, its eight million inhabitants, its giant skyscraper buildings and twinkling starlight above the pollution - people celebrate the fourth of July from all directions, performing their little dances in the avenues, buying useless souvenirs that belong in the cardboard boxes underneath their beds.

 

It’s the noise that bothers Bucky. Despite having been discharged two years ago, the catastrophically loud booms that accompany the fantastic display are impossible to ignore. Even from Brooklyn, the East River off Manhattan might as well be next door. Bucky throws the duvet off his body, trembling in the night.

 

Steve is sleeping soundly in the adjacent room, and Bucky thanks his friend every day for giving him space - but also a place to stay - after what happened in the war. Without Steve, he figured he would lose himself; he’d certainly be at least jobless, probably homeless too, skinny and miserable and left to die on the streets. His gratefulness is all he can offer the blond boy who’s slowly capturing his heart, he thinks, and thankfully Steve takes it. Tonight, however, Bucky can’t stay here.

 

He gets dressed and slips out the rusty door, pushing on the damn thing as quietly as he can so he doesn’t wake his roommate up. It gives way after an irritating second and Bucky grabs his jacket from its lone hook before running out.

 

He’s tugging on his hair, breathing fast, wishing it would just stop already. His feet take him out of the apartment building and towards, God, he doesn’t know what but as long as there isn’t so much noise, it should be fine. His heart seems to stop as he concludes an idea where that might be a possibility, sort of - maybe he can’t drown out the noise all together (it is New York, after all), but he could replace the furious thunder of the fireworks with something that doesn’t sound like exaggerated gunshots.

 

He goes to the Brooklyn Bridge, crosses it - he’s running and ruthless when it comes to pushing people out of his way - it doesn’t take long. It takes a little longer to stop near Battery Park right at the southern tip of Manhattan but it’s worth it because the sound of heavy traffic - cars, just cars, so much better than guns - drowns everything out. The West Side Highway is an impressive sight, one that Bucky’s never really took the time to admire before, but the kind of noise its drivers emit is simply wonderful; so much so he wants to become a part of it.

 

Bucky doesn’t know what he’s doing. It’s like his body controls him, and his mind races to keep up as he steps his first step onto the road. Vehicles don’t bother about him just yet, not until he takes another few dangerous steps inwards and people around him start to look at him like he’s insane. The traffic even clears up a minuscule amount and coupled with the relieving absence of firework noise - for just a moment, that’s all he wanted - Bucky feels so happy and relaxed he could fall asleep.

 

He closes his eyes. He’s part of the good noise now. He isn’t going to be shot, not like the Private was, not blindfolded and stuck against a pole and innocent and scared. He’s the furthest example from scared, now. He’s brave and he needs to feel it. His eyes screw up tighter as he stops in the middle of the road.

 

Everything is silent, and it’s good, but suddenly it’s not about his hearing as much as it is about the white light that’s starting to appear behind his eyelids. He tries to breathe it away but it’s getting bigger and brighter and eventually he’s forced back to reality, and it’s not just one white light but rather two, shining straight ahead against him, like the world is against him, like America wants to run him over with her gleaming black Audi.

 

But she decides to change her mind, and she swerves, and there’s the worst noise as the headlights divert to the side and the car flips and crashes in Bucky’s wake.

 

Bucky can’t move for a moment, caught up in the horrible thing he’s caused. He got in the driver’s way and now look what he’s done. What’s Steve going to think of him? What’s his country going to do with him now, a so-called war hero causing chaos on Independence Day? Bucky eventually finds it in himself to move and rushes over to the car lying on its side, smoking from the back and smashed almost to pieces.

 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he’s saying but it’s drowned out in his ears, and the fireworks are going off again and it’s utterly unbearable. He can’t breathe until he knows the passengers are alright. A few other cars have stopped beside them and a frantic woman is dialling 911, asking for an ambulance. Bucky tries to open the doors but only struggles pointlessly before he realises he can’t.

 

He looks inside where the front windshield would be if it wasn’t in chunks scattered across the area. A middle-aged woman lies sprawled half-in and half-out, blood streaming from her head and cuts across her pale, bare shoulders. Her eyes are closed, in unconsciousness or something worse, Bucky has no idea. He chokes on something in his throat as he takes in the appearance of the man, and oh my God, he knows exactly who that is with those haunted eyes frozen open, clearly deceased, the picture of pain. Bucky will never forgive himself.

 

“I’m sorry,” he says once more, cracked, and the flashing lights come to their aid as people start to bring out cameras to take photos to capture the identity of the victim. Bucky never wanted this to happen. He just wanted the noise to stop. Howard Stark slumps forward.


	2. The Burn

‘Sorry, I know it was my idea but could we take a rain check on dinner?’

 

Tony’s thumb hits the send button on his phone and immediately he feels awful. He’s lost count of the number of times he’s had to cancel plans with Clint and his family but each time he comes up with a seemingly valid excuse - the headaches, the exhaustion, the sheer amount of stress derived from being rich and famous - and they’ll pile up until hopefully there comes a day where Tony won’t be decent enough to feel guilty anymore. Or maybe one day he’ll just bite the bullet and have some goddamn dinner.

 

Certainly, tonight he will. Going back to his contacts, Tony scrolls to Bucky’s name which had been given to him discreetly a while back. The last message he sent the previous night was hardly readable because of the Xanax so he ignores it and sends a new one: ‘I’ll take you up on dinner. Tell Steve I’ll bring free-range cookies.’

 

Shockingly, given that it’s early in the morning, the reply is almost immediate: ‘He asks if you’re actually going to bake them yourself.’ Tony is kind of surprised that Steve hasn’t texted him himself asking how he has his boyfriend’s phone number.

 

’The creatures of the forest will help me,’ Tony sends back with snark and an internal roll of his eyes. And, as if the movement sparked the biggest wave of nausea he’s ever experienced, suddenly he finds himself sprinting to the nearest bathroom and throwing up in the sink.

 

Not that there’s much to throw up in the first place; this is the fourth time he’s vomited since waking up and it’s a new and unwelcome venture. Breakfast didn’t stay down. The drugs he take list being sick as a common side effect but it’s one he thought he had luckily evaded until now. He can only cross his fingers that it’ll go away by dinner because the last thing he needs is Steve’s concerned tutting when the blond’s homemade cooking is regurgitated onto his lap.

 

Shakily, he gets to his feet and finds the nearly-empty bottle in the bathroom cupboard. I don’t want to feel like this anymore, he realises. Lately, there have been more bad times than good. In fact, it’s been a while since Xanax has made him feel truly invincible, and if that’s something that’s going to be out of reach now, why bother taking it? He battles internally with himself before chucking the remaining pills into the toilet alongside the contents of his stomach, and flushes them. He should set about baking those damn cookies.

 

The whole time he spends baking, he thinks about his life again. Stops and considers the big picture. He chooses to wholeheartedly put all his love and care into the cookies he’s making - as much as he can, anyway. His hand tenderly moves a whisk around a jug of raw eggs, the expensive organic kind. Hell, he’ll add in chocolate chips while he’s at it. Somehow, he makes a day out of it - not because baking cookies takes an entire day but because he feels slow and time has no meaning or patience for him.

 

He puts the cookies in a plastic box and grimaces at the fact he’s probably made enough for every character in the DC universe. But if Steve won’t let Tony help out with rent, the least the billionaire can do is make sure his friend is well-fed.

 

‘Dinner is at 6:30!’ Tony receives an enthusiastic text from Steve followed by a smiley face with an unnecessary gap between the colon and bracket. It’s time to go, then. He takes his own car.

 

Steve greets him at the door several floors above the ground with a great and wondrous amount of cheerful oblivion. Light floods in to the otherwise dingy communal stairwell. “You actually baked those?” He grins in good humour.

 

There are flowers in a vase in the middle of the dining table and Tony squints his eyes in curiosity because they’re roses. You don’t put roses out when you invite a friend round for a casual bowl of pasta. Steve dishes out the hot food with a knowing look and Tony wonders idly if he should be nervous or something. Bucky is already sat down, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes, instead dropping a few pieces of garlic bread onto his side plate in determined quietness.

 

The whole evening is an odd ordeal, with Steve too happy, Bucky too distracting, and with Tony’s mind on nothing more than sprinting home and tearing apart his drains system to see if he can relocate the Xanax he flushed. God, it was a bad idea getting rid of them. He grips the underneath of the table when Bucky offers him a glass of champagne, unknowing why that would be a bad idea.

 

“I’m gonna have to start on these dishes, sometimes the hot water goes funny after nine…” Steve trails off, suddenly flushed and embarrassed that he’s complaining about something that Tony could pay to have fixed for him with the snap of his fingers. Before that very offer can be made, however, Bucky speaks.

 

“I’ll show Tony that weird piece of art you thought he’d like,” he says and nods towards the hallway, then back to Tony as if they’re just two barely-met almost-friends trying to have their first one-on-one conversation, “Steve loves it so much, he was just saying before you came that it really, really is something worth… experiencing.”

 

When Steve goes to the kitchen with the dirty plates and glasses, Bucky drags Tony to the hallway. They get a three second look at the naked Matisse-inspired woman painted onto a psychedelic background before Bucky is lowering his voice to convey his seriousness.

 

“Steve asked me to marry him and I said yes,” he says out of the blue and Tony has to do a double-take.

 

“When?” is all he can think to ask. Not why. Maybe he knows why. Bucky doesn’t want Tony, he wants Steve and he wants him exclusively and seriously and lovingly. Still, he has to add in: “And why the hell would you say that? What about us?”

 

Bucky looks nervous. “It was about ten minutes before you got here.” He stops to consider. “There’s no us. I thought I texted you that already. Tony, it was reckless and…”

 

Tony understands now; the joyous attitude Steve had, the way he couldn’t stop smiling as if he had the best piece of news one could hope for. Of course Steve popped the question. Why wouldn’t he? They’ve been friends since childhood, know each other inside and out - they’ve been dating since 2005. That’s five years of living inside their perfect little bubble of… love. The word makes him dizzy.

 

“… and I can’t let it happen again.” Bucky’s finished talking, perhaps, but then he seems to squint his intensive eyes and tilt his head as if trying to solve an important problem. “I just noticed you’re not high.”

 

“No,” Tony says, as much as he wishes he was, “I’m trying to stop.”

 

“Good.” The man looks genuinely pleased for his wellbeing. “I—“

 

“That’s all the dishwasher loaded,” Steve cuts in from nowhere, beaming and slinging an arm around his boyfriend - no, fiancé. That’s a crucial detail to remember now. There are no rings on their fingers yet. He’s swinging a dishtowel around the air as he addresses Tony. “I hate to chase you away but something’s, uh, sort of come up before dinner and…”

 

“And you’re getting married, I hear,” Tony finishes for him and Steve’s smile somehow gets impossibly wider while Bucky ducks his head with a rare flush, “Stevie, that’s amazing. Seriously, I’m so happy for you.”

 

Bucky mutters something about not calling him Stevie but nobody hears it because Steve is too busy lurching forward and hugging his friend. “I’m happy too. You’re gonna be my best man, alright?” He pulls back and remembers something that momentarily shifts his ecstatic expression. “So, obviously it’s not legal in New York but there’s always Massachusetts or - hey, the New Hampshire law went into effect in January. And even if it’s not completely recognised, it’s the thought that counts. One day…”

 

“New York will catch up in a few years, I bet,” assures Tony because really, it’s 2010, “and travelling just gives you a good excuse for a nice honeymoon.”

 

“We were thinking Spain,” Bucky inputs.

 

“Nice place,” Tony agrees, having been a few times himself. He unconsciously lets his head tip back toward the doorframe as if realising they’ll want to celebrate and he should go home. “Well…”

 

“I’ll walk you out,” offers Steve and leads them to the door. The stairwell is still small and cramped but full of excitement and promise - on Steve’s side, anyway. They open the main door to the outside world.

 

Tony’s almost made it to his car before Steve’s reaching an arm out to stop him and pull him back, seeming like he has something important to say before they part. Tony nervously looks inside the windows to their place, seeing the lights on but no sign of Bucky spying from the windows. Tony wonders how much the guy is beating himself up right now for sleeping with him.

 

“You know, when I first met you I was so sure I was in love with you.” Steve’s voice cuts through the air like a goddamn sword and Tony is awkwardly surprised at the statement.

 

“Me?” He laughs a little. Tony and Steve, together - it’s a weird idea considering they’ve been friends for so many years and were never considered anything more. Steve is practically his brother.

 

“You were the perfect guy,” Steve elaborates without a hint of joking, “you had a pool in your garden. Hell, you had a garden, in New York City. My dad would hang the washing on the windowsill and I’d think about how you probably had twenty maids and twice as many windows.”

 

The thought makes Tony sad.

 

“And aside from the money, you had looks. You were charming and witty. I would have—“ Steve cuts himself off with a startled laugh, “I would’ve asked you to the college dance.”

 

“What about Bucky?” Tony asks, knowing well that Steve’s best friend was away in the army when they met. Bucky was never mentioned then - hell, not until Tony met him such a short time ago - maybe because Steve always wanted to keep that little part of his life to himself.

 

“Even if I had realised what he meant to me back then, it’s not about that.” Steve rejects the idea. He turns to face Tony, suddenly very upset-looking in a somber sort of way. “Tony, when your parents died, I knew I didn’t love you even the tiniest bit.”

 

It would be a lie to say that didn’t sting. Steve goes on to say, “In order to be in love, both parties have to be present.” Like it’s some sort of scientific fact. Like love isn’t a social construct created for genetic diversity in a constantly breeding population. “I was there, but all of a sudden, you weren’t. When Bucky came back from Afghanistan, it was almost the same. It was like he was missing. Eventually, he came back and we started to love each other. As a friend, I’m still waiting on you.”

 

“Uh,” Tony responds unintelligently because what are you supposed to say to that?

 

“It’s been nearly three years since they died. I know that in the grand scheme of things, that’s not a long time but...” Steve’s eyes dart about the place as if suddenly realising he’s crossed over so, so many lines but there’s nothing to stop him now. He settles his gaze on his shoes. “You have to try to be here.”

 

‘I think I understand,’ Tony wants to say. He acknowledges it but perhaps he doesn’t want to admit the fact that he feels so distant and lonely and God, so empty. So not here. “I’ll admit,” he says and Steve perks up, happy that he’s being listened to, but Tony’s already walking away and swinging his car keys, “you’re right. Three years isn’t a long time. I’ll need much longer.”

 

In the greater perspective, time is relative. The unconditional love Tony swatted at his parents has left a gaping hole that no amount of years will fix, but in a matter of weeks, there is another kind of love. The word that made him dizzy.

 

“He asked you to marry him. You said yes.” A little bit of deja vu hits Tony the next time he sees Bucky at his front door, wasted. It’s a weird look: as if his hair couldn’t get any more disheveled or his eyes any more wild, but they’re looking at him in a gaze that won’t give up. Tony lets him in when their lips get too close.

 

“Yes,” Bucky slurs, “I always say yes.”

 

Maybe that’s why they sleep together again. And again. And again. Things spiral out of control and he wants Xanax but he promised that he’s going to wean himself off of it. When you spend so much time around a person, they become yours, whether they like it or not - yours to have and hold and waste away life with. You forget the thin line between enemies to friends to lovers before it’s too late and you realise that they’re on your mind sometimes, most of the time, then always. When they’re the last thing you see before you close your eyes - or, in Tony’s case, when you can’t doze off so you lie and stare at the ceiling and think of how messy you’ve let everything get.

 

Always say yes. He could never say no to Bucky, he realises, and suddenly he sees not just what horrible people they both are but how desperately they crave affection, understanding. They are one, together. They can’t be apart. They share the same brain. That’s when you lose your breath and remember that it’s love.

 

One day, Tony meets Bucky in a public place. It’s unconventional and almost makes him panic so he slides some sunglasses over his eyes, picks a booth in a coffee shop where his back faces the window, away from the prying eyes of outsiders. He soon understands the setting - he’s Tony Stark, he wouldn’t have a problem making a scene - when Bucky tells him about the engagement party.

 

“You just,” Tony cuts in, disbelieving, “you - it’s too soon. Why? What are you thinking? Was it Steve’s idea?”

 

The last question goes awkwardly unanswered which says it all. “It’s got to happen at some point. He loves me, why wouldn’t he throw this great elaborate party to show it off?”

 

“And I suppose you’re embarrassed. You think you don’t deserve to be showed off and guess what! You don’t.” Turns out the ‘not making a scene’ thing is going to be more challenging than anticipated. “Why are you even doing this - doing me? And don’t say it’s because you’re having some sort of quarter-life crisis.”

 

Bucky opens his mouth to give a spontaneous, honest answer before he backs down with a swallow, seeming frightened. “Wait here,” he snaps but it’s meant with affection and without warning, he’s stumbling out of their place in the shop and running across the street. Tony cranes his head to look at where the man is going but gives up with a roll of his eyes when he disappears round a corner out of sight.

 

He waits three and a half more minutes before the front door opens wide with a burst of air, startling the employees and other bored, half-asleep customers. Bucky wades through a sea of chairs to get back to their table and gentle places a large bouquet of flowers in front of Tony. They’re pink, and fluffy. Roses.

 

“What,” breathes Tony, “the hell?”

 

“Did you know that roses have existed for, like, forty million years? Western culture says that the red ones go back to Ancient Greek times when they thought that the goddess A—“ The veteran shakes his head and scowls at himself for going into an impromptu rant about some useless information that nobody wants to hear anyway. He ducks his head down like a preteen about to ask his crush to the school dance. “I just wanted to give you flowers.”

 

“This is an impressive way of avoiding a question,” Tony admits, “but—“ He picks up the bunch and examines the fact that they don’t have thorns on their stems, “do I look like the Virgin Mary?”

 

“You know,” Bucky says, ignoring him, “onto more pointless facts, when Marilyn Monroe died, her ex-husband sent roses to her grave three times a week for twenty years.” There is a point to this story, somehow. “I want you to know that no matter what happens, no matter how this ends up, no matter if you or I are even here at the end of it all - I’d still want to give you flowers.”

 

“In another life,” Tony rejects and pushes the roses away, feeling bashful.

 

“No,” Bucky says and it surprises them both (the man who would always say yes), “in this life. Because there is no other.”

 

“When is the party?” Tony mumbles and the brutal stab at his chest tells him that indeed, he is stupidly, stupidly in love with Bucky Barnes.

 

“Day after tomorrow.” He wonders if Bucky feels the same knife.

 

Time is still relative, but it still passes. Tony’s tired. The evening is approaching and as much as he wants to take a nap, Bucky and Steve’s engagement party is in a couple of hours and he may be evasive but he’s nosy enough to go. He wouldn’t be surprised at himself if the very event made him mad - the colour scheme, palettes of washed-out shades meant to evoke joy in the guests. He can picture the abundance of moonlight flooding the windows, the champagne they’ve splashed out on, something Steve might have been saving for for months. Tony could pay for it with an hour’s wages.

 

He doesn’t intend to ruin the party but he isn’t going to stand around passively pretending to congratulate the lucky couple. He will never be happy for them. Steve shouldn’t settle for an unfaithful cheater and Bucky doesn’t deserve Steve.

 

He vaguely recalls a vital phone call. One in the morning, a brief conversation of desperation with Bucky on the other end of the line. Don’t do it, please don’t do it. At least don’t have the party so soon after you get engaged - I know Steve’s arranged for everything and it’s going to be disgustingly spectacular but you can still change your mind. Don’t marry him, please.

 

Tony Stark, reduced to begging. He can’t believe himself. Of course, Bucky had to hang up eventually. Tony logged the call anyway, wanting to remember it as if to punish himself. What he would give for a pill right now.

 

But he isn’t doing that - he’s stopping, and he’s doing okay with that. Sure, withdrawals are making him more down in the dumps than ever and the physical side-effects aren’t desirable but he’ll get through it. He’s determined to show the world he isn’t some junkie lowlife anymore and he’ll actually make something good of himself (when he gets over Bucky, maybe). When a Stark puts his mind to something, you’re damn right he’ll stick to it.

 

A maid passes by in an adjacent room and Tony rolls his eyes because he thought he told them all to go home and take a break. But maybe it’s a sign that he needs help picking out a suit from his collection (he doesn’t have time for custom tailoring now). He calls out, “Hey, you folding the laundry.”

 

It’s rude but he’s not in the mood for pleasantries. The young woman enters the room, appearing nervous like he’s never called on her for anything specifically before - other than, ‘just do the chores, I don’t know’. It’s how he was raised to speak to the people who worked for him.

 

“Want to pick out a suit for me?” He mumbles, feeling almost shy all of a sudden. Like he’s a baby who can’t dress himself but in reality he just wants to look good and he doesn’t have the right mindset to choose a decent outfit.

 

“Of course, Sir,” she accepts and Tony feels like he should remember her name but he can’t, “is it a special occasion?”

 

“My friend’s throwing a party,” he deadpans. The word ‘friend’ makes him want to throw up on himself. He’d make vomit a fashion statement.

 

The girl decides on something greyish. He swears he’s never worn it before. It makes him sad to see the tags still on as a confirmation of this, the lonely fabric tucked away in his closet. He nods in approval, hoping it’s not too much for a seemingly private occasion.

 

“Thank you, that’s all.” He dismisses the maid then gets dressed. The suit ends up fitting well and the muted colour brings out the intensity of his irises. He stares at himself, the narcissist, in the mirror, and pushes his hair back furiously so it’s out of his way.

 

Two black eyes of exhaustion take prominence on his face. He’ll be needing concealer.

 

He spends an hour with his driver awkwardly avoiding small talk before they get to the party. It’s indoors, a venue with arched windows and a couple of warm bouquets of flowers lining the front door. Tony thinks back to the roses Bucky got him and swallows, knowing he fell for the oldest trick in the book. They’re already starting to wilt where he left them in a vase in his penthouse anyway so it’s all the more reason to throw them away.

 

He’s been to a million and one of these kinds of events but this is the first time he’s unable to fake a smile. He smooths down his outfit before the driver opens the door for him. There are a few paparazzi waiting to get a picture (he’s given up on guessing how they know so much about where he’s going all the time) but he stops for nobody, shielding his eyes from the camera flashes as he hurries to get in.

 

And yes, it’s precisely as he imagined it. The light of the city and the stars floods through the arch-shaped glass to cast on the floors, deliberately chipped wood to mimic the cutesy vintage look that’s evident also in the lamps without shades and low-hanging ivy nestled in crotchet. Real and untameable unlike the stuffy guests in their fifty-percent-off Gucci suits, sweating over when their next cider is going to arrive. 

 

But now is not the time to look down on people for their cheapness or drink choice... Tony’s far too preoccupied judging their lack of style. He does expect congratulatory champagne to be around somewhere, though he doesn’t intend to indulge in it.

 

“Tony,” says Steve at the door with a small smile, waiting as one of the servers takes the billionaire’s jacket. Bucky is nowhere to be seen and thank God for that, because Tony is not equipped to deal with love’s cruel spit in his face right now. “Would you like a - I mean, are you allowed... uh... a drink?”

 

“You know Steve, the AA meetings I’ve been going to have changed my outlook on life. It’s really been an eye-opener to see how soul-crushingly devastating the effects of alcohol are on—“

 

“Alright, alright, that was a yes or no question.” Steve cuts off his nonsense sarcastic ramblings with a light shove on the shoulder. “You look like you need one.”

 

Tony’s eyes flicker over his friend’s shoulder to catch a familiar brunette chatting idly with a bunch of people he must hardly know. His heart burns. “Whiskey,” Tony blurts, “and I was under the impression that you would know all of your guests.”

 

“I... do.” Steve seems confused, following his gaze, and he’s speaking very slowly tonight as if from exhaustion or a caffeine crash. He’s probably lost some sleep over planning this extravaganza. “Those are Bucky’s friends. Or relatives. Distant ones, probably.”

 

Bucky’s smiling then laughing at their comments until he turns briefly to catch sight of Tony, promptly looking lost for words. If it were any other fond man or woman, Tony would smirk because he knows he looks good in this suit. All he can do now is swallow a lump in his throat.

 

“Neat?” Steve pushes with the drinks, almost concerned.

 

“On the rocks,” Tony decides to say to ease the tension. Surely he can enjoy one drink without falling into old habits. Sweat collects under his collar.

 

He spends the entire evening avoiding Bucky, first sipping on his drink then risking ordering another to drink slightly faster. Two turns into three then four. By his fifth, it’s too late to take things back before the frightening collapse of the sober world. He’s drunk, for the first time in a long time. He needs to stay the hell away from everyone, knowing he’ll just embarrass himself.

 

Steve comes to check on him a couple of hours after he arrived. “Your tie’s... loose,” he comments, still with that increasingly irritating hesitance in his voice. He’s avoiding calling Tony out on his public intoxication.

 

Tony fiddles with the garment around his neck; a motion he’s been doing all night like it’s been choking him. “Aren’t you making—“ Hiccup, ugh, great, he didn’t mean to let that one escape, “—a speech?”

 

“Yeah, I am. Right now, actually, as long as you’re okay.” Steve steps a bit closer.

 

Tony hides his scowl. “Don’t let me kill the party.”

 

“Look,” Steve starts like he wants to get back into the conversation from dinner the other night, about being ‘present’ in the here and now, but he decides he doesn’t have the time or mindset for it when there’s a crumpled piece of paper in his hand waiting to be read aloud to a hundred guests.

 

Tony makes a swift exit, drunk and irked that people just adore to make his alcoholism and drug abuse their favourite topic of conversation (he’s sick of it, everyone thinking that they can help him), making a beeline for Bucky. He doesn’t have to know what Steve’s going to say into the mic to predict that it’ll be sappy, unnecessary and farfetched. He needs to talk with Bucky - real talk, real words from the heart.

 

Bucky meets him halfway albeit reluctantly, brows furrowed messily over his eyelids as he tries to keep composure. “My fiancé is about to make his speech,” he whispers with force, “whatever you want to say to me can wait.”

 

“Last time I saw you, you were gifting me roses.” Tony remembers the beautiful little things, blooming for his curious eyes. Soft and finite. “Last time I heard you... I said all those things and you hung up on me.”

 

“‘Things’? Like when you broke down and sobbed and told me not to marry your best friend?”

 

Even wasted, Tony can tell when people are genuinely deciding to be nasty pieces of work instead of just using insults as a mask. This is one of those times, where the look in Bucky’s eyes makes him stagger back - a cross between sorrow and hate. It screams to be left alone. Tony won’t let it be.

 

“I thought you understood right from the start what you were getting yourself into,” continues Bucky, “I thought you wanted it like this, I didn’t think it would get so serious for you—“

 

“For me!” Tony scoffs, perhaps a little too loud as the immediate crowd around him shoot him sideways looks of displeasure. Up on a stand, Steve taps a microphone to check that it’s on.

 

“Thanks everyone for coming,” he says gratefully, a warm colour to his cheeks that accompanies the head rush of a couple glasses of wine.

 

Tony ignores the impending speech, treating it as background noise. “Bucky. We both know this has gone far beyond what we’d hoped for, but it’s not just on my end. Don’t you remember what you said?”

 

“I’m sure you all know my wonderful fiancé James Barnes,” Steve goes on somewhere behind them, “some of you as family, friends, from Bucky’s time serving in the army. Uh, speaking of, there’s a story to that I can’t help but bring up.”

 

“People say a lot of questionable stuff at one in the morning,” Bucky argues with Tony, “your call woke me up - I was just trying to go back to sleep!” His voice rises enough to capture the attention of a larger section of the audience, half of whom still hang on the words of Steve’s speech. The room seems to part in the middle, a sea between two men set to be married.

 

“When Bucky served in Afghanistan, it’s a pretty well-known fact by now that he did beyond what made his country proud.” Steve smiles behind the mic but his attention is divided when he spots Tony with his fiancé in the crowd, stealing the limelight.

 

“So it’s allllllll,” Tony drawls, sweeping his arm around the room before flailing on his own feet, trying to keep upright before the booze pulls him all the way under, “a lie. All that bull about giving me flowers too, oh man.”

 

“You’re drunk,” is all Bucky responds with, dumbfounded like he’s just noticed the state the man is in, “please, Tony, I just can’t talk about this right now. You shouldn’t either.”

 

Tony backs away like a scorned dog before making a dash for the stand Steve is situated on. Before he can think twice about it, with all good intentions at heart, he snatches the microphone away. “Ladies and gentlemen, oh, I’m sorry to interrupt but I’ve got a lovely message from a groom that simply can’t wait!” Bucky stares up at him from the ground, horrified.

 

Steve tries only once to pry the microphone from Tony’s grasp but he doesn’t allow it, intending to be quick in any case. “Just a quick fact about flowers. You know, Marilyn Monroe’s ex-husband had roses put on her grave three times a week when she died - for twenty years. I think Bucky just wants his future husband to know that through thick and thin—“ He stops abruptly to correct himself, “—or rather, for better or worse or rich or poor... Bucky would always make flower crowns for Stevie’s hair.”

 

Tony has to stumble off the little stage area before anyone sees the utterly tragic misery that’s enveloped his expression, a threatening wetness pooling in his eyes. Steve is speechless for a split second before he manages to recover and tilt the corners of his mouth into a smile - or an attempt at one, at least. Whether the message is from Bucky or not, he’s only worried about his best friend.

 

It’s late in the evening when Tony pries himself away from the bar long enough to grab his coat and think about heading back to the penthouse. He has a long, intense look around the hall of food he hasn’t touched, drinks he’d give his left foot for, smiling cheery people he’d sooner die than pretend to be - and walks out the door without saying goodbye. Nobody will want to speak to him without asking with puzzlement why he threw in that speech about roses, and he doesn’t care to explain, lie or truth.

 

He doesn’t notice Bucky sneaking out behind him and following his driver home in a cab.

 

Tony fumbles around with the door to the luxury building until his driver opens it, pitying the drunken idiot whose tie hangs like a broken noose around his neck. The employee sees Bucky getting out of a yellow cab before Tony does.

 

“Sir, Mr Stark is not interested in autographs tonight,” he advises.

 

Tony turns around, expecting a random fan wanting a photo for the front page news - a headline like ‘Tony Stark’s seven hundredth and forty-eighth relapse caught on camera’ or something - but is surprised to see an unreadable war veteran instead. “It’s okay,” says Tony to his driver quietly, “he’s a friend.”

 

There are still hints of tears waiting to escape when Bucky comes up to him, letting his hands fall to Tony’s waist, simply looking at him in the fake lights of New York to take in his sadness. Tony wants to duck his head in shame but is too stubborn not to hold it high.

 

“What are you doing here?” His voice, to his credit, doesn’t wobble. Bucky motions to the door, silently asking if they can go up to his place and talk, and Tony nods.

 

The billionaire throws his suit jacket on the floor somewhere when they reach the top floor, continuously embarrassed. Bucky stands in the doorway, barely illuminated, taking in the sad face of the moon outside the window, that large light in the sky amidst a blanket of black. Slowly, he moves in, breath tight in his chest. What’s wrong with him isn’t something he feels anyone can explain - and it’s not about the war, it never has been. It’s not about his mind. It’s not about cars. It’s not about Steve. It’s not about Tony.

 

What’s wrong with him is that he wants, more than anything, a feeling beyond his reach. It’s not enough to be loved, all of a sudden, so maybe it’s achievable that he can be hated with stronger passion. Maybe he wants Tony to loathe him - why he doesn’t is beyond him. America should abandon him. He sees the reflection of a man in the window.

 

“You looked very beautiful tonight,” Bucky mumbles as he turns to Tony, not sure what else to say. Tony shrugs in response, disbelieving, and takes a seat next to the door on the floor. It’s like he can’t make it to the sofa. He puts a hand on his chest like his heart hurts.

 

“I’m so sorry, Bucky,” he says in dismay at his own actions. Truth is, that wasn’t Tony at the party - that was someone else entirely inhabiting his physical body, and his soul lingered as a wispy cloud above, watching everything unravel. Watching as his skin crawled and he became a being of destruction. He wishes he was sober right now. “I ruined it. I was so tired. I’m still tired—”

 

“No, no, there’s a bigger picture,” Bucky denies, “I have to start tasting wedding cakes. I’m the one who gave a speech about the man I’m supposed to love - I mean, I do love but...”

 

“I get it. It’s the principle of it all - your secret fling attends your damn engagement party; the stupid romcoms tell you that I’m supposed to tear it all up. And you think you’re the bad guy.” Tony starts having an existential crisis or something because his hands are inexplicably shaking. “The movies tell you that I’m supposed to cause a scene because I‘m jealous, though, and that’s not it. Did it because I’m messed up in the head.” At this, Bucky mumbles something reassuringly that mostly goes unnoticed.

 

“I’m such a bad person,” Tony realises with an absent shake of his head. Bucky sighs and finally takes a seat beside him, closing his eyes. “Christ, what are we doing?”

 

“I don’t know,” Bucky whispers. He swallows around the shame in his throat. “Tony, listen.”

 

“No, you shut up and listen to me. Bucky, I know… there’s something wrong inside my brain.” Tony starts crying at last. “T-there’s something wrong in my head.” And sobbing, earnestly, engulfed in anguish, too upset even to be ashamed of it. “I know why I did it. It’s like my whole life is that crash. My entire existence is controlled by a car in the wrong place in the wrong time. Every day I wake up and I think I smell my mother’s perfume; I feel my father’s suit jacket on the skin on my arm. It’s not fair. Why do people die? I mean, I - I understand that kids ask that kind of stuff all the time and it’s the adults that have to give them some pathetic excuse about it being natural but...

 

“It’s not natural for whoever’s left behind. And there’s no adult to lie to me and put me to bed and tell me to sleep it off or smile at me at the funeral. I’m,” he gasps for air, hardly able to get the words out, “I - I’m a-alone, and t-the world - is - so big, ’s so unnatural and m-my brain - my brain says a-all there - all there is, is that it keeps - k-keeps r-repeating an-and it’s the - crash - over and over and I-I can’t stop wishing I c-could die.”

 

Bucky can’t say anything as Tony goes on pouring his heart out, throwing it up all over their laps. Choking it up like some internal injury. “If I - I die, it will stop. The s-stupid cycle of being so - so afraid that one day I - I forget to - t-to - to - to put my seatbelt on! And - or I run a red - a red light, and then it’s me! It’s me! Then I-I’m the crash, I am the car, can’t - it - and s-someone wants my suit jacket on - on their a-arm or they w-want to - I don’t know, they want t-to smell me again b-because then I’ll just - just smell l-like - I’ll smell - smell like death.”

 

He seems to take a breath then, hesitates enough to get control of his voice back. “I don’t wanna do this anymore. My entire sob story of a life is going to end in disaster. I feel like a goddamn cyclist trying to make my feet go as fast as they can before someone behind me runs me over and breaks my legs, and flattens me. And I become part of the road.” He attempts to wipe some of the tears from his cheeks without success. “I miss them.” He finally notices how much it pains him. “I want to go back. I don’t understand why they’re not alive. Bucky, just - I do not understand how it could possibly be that they just died. That they just weren’t there anymore. That I have to be completely alone, all the time, and that everything - everything is going to just be like this, for the rest of forever. I’m just a crash, forever.”

 

“You’re not a crash, Tony,” Bucky manages to say eventually after not much careful consideration, extremely overwhelmed, and he pulls Tony closer into his chest and simply holds him as tightly as he can, “you’re right here with me. We’re just here. It’s okay, we’re gonna keep going.”

 

“I love you,” says Tony, drained. It’s such a small few words that they go unnoticed, maybe because otherwise he’d make a fool of himself. The moon falls behind a sliver of a cloud and the darkness is a wash of uncertainty.

 

“Tony, listen.” Bucky tries again, ready to share his biggest secret, ready to lose everything over it. Maybe it’s not the best timing but if he doesn’t say it now, he never will. He wipes tears away from Tony’s cheeks as they pull apart from their hug. “I have to tell you something.”

 

“You have to say it now?” He’s beyond done with talking and listening. He wants to sleep. He wants to curl up in bed - or hell, even the floor, just throw him a pillow - and rest for three days. His eyelids droop.

 

“I have to,” Bucky insists, “please. It’s about your parents.”

 

All thoughts of duck feather downing are put to die in his head as Tony’s eyes snap open. “What?”

 

It comes pouring out before Bucky can think to talk in a sensitive manner or consider the man’s feelings. “It was me. It was my fault. I had come back from Afghanistan, I was hurt and emotional and confused and there was so much noise in New York that I just wanted to escape it all. I found myself on a highway, that highway, because the cars sounded so beautiful compared to gun— I mean, the fireworks in the sky. I had to make it stop; it was like I was dreaming, like nothing existed except my body and these machines on the road and we had to become one.”

 

“No,” says Tony like if he denies it, it couldn’t have happened.

 

“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” Bucky says desperately and by this point, he’s kneeling in front of Tony, trying to take his unwilling hands into an embrace, pleading, “I wish I could take it back. Tony, I’m so sorry. They saw me in the middle of the road and I wasn’t going to move - I was going to let myself get hit, I was ready for it - and they swerved. They saved my life but they ran themselves off the road. The car flipped. Tony, I’m sorry, please believe me, I’m - I’m sorry, I went over to them but there was blood and I’m so sorry—“

 

“Get off!” Tony pushes the brunette away so he falls back onto his heels and gets to his feet. “This is a sick joke. Get out.”

 

“Honey, it’s not a joke. It’s real. Tony, please forgive me—“

 

“You were there.” Tony lets everything sink in as he starts to understand that it really happened. That all the twisted coincidences in the world came together to laugh at him and make his existence a misery. What did he do to deserve this? Why does it have to be Bucky, the one he loves? “You killed them.”

 

“I know,” Bucky breathes, “I know, I’m sorry—“

 

“You…” He puts his head in his hands and squeezes at his skin, wanting to rip it off, crush his skull. His brain lights up with betrayal. “Oh, God.”

 

“I’m so—“

 

“Stop saying that!” Tony pushes him again and Bucky sprawls out onto his back, palms raised in surrender. His expression is blown wide, scared. Like he expects Tony to stab him over this but he knows he would deserve it. Bucky ruined Tony’s life. Bucky is the reason for everything bad that ever happened to him.

 

Bucky is back in the war and murdering the innocent people he was told he should hate. He’s pulled out a gun and held it to someone’s head and they’re whispering, please don’t kill me. I have a family. I have children. Bucky has pulled the trigger and his country has wept and cheered at a hole in a head. His country celebrates Tony’s wound, the almost-fatal one. He is supposed to be a hero.

 

“I’m letting you leave.” Tony’s voice breaks him out of the haze. It still sounds distraught but now holds a degree of lifelessness. This is the trigger having been pulled for good. “I never want to see you again. Please don’t fight me.”

 

Bucky could never fight him. “Okay,” he whispers, preparing himself to look at Tony for the last time so he can memorise that face, even if it’s driven by hatred, “alright, okay. Okay. I lo—” But he stops because he doesn’t have anything else to say.

 

Soon, Tony holds the front door open for him. They look into each other’s eyes and maybe time stops because all Bucky can see are those deep brown pools that enticed him so, that beckoned him to jump in and drown little by little with each passing day. When he’s gone, Tony snaps the stems off the roses and throws them in the trash.

 

*

 

To reiterate, the whole ‘going sober’ thing sucks. Xanax is almost a kind of antidepressant, strong in the way it takes the edge off until all that’s left are longing curves - curves that you slide upon, soft feminine lines that carry you to heaven through wisps of cloud. Since cutting back (completely, now), Tony is dealing with sharp points that slice at his neck and heart.

 

If love is this doomed, what does he have to live for? Why does he bother to keep trying? The whole point of life, he keeps being told, is being happy and he can’t remember the last time he wasn’t overflowing with misery. If there’s no love for him, there’s nothing. It’s a dangerous thought to have and it’s taken him to the roof above his penthouse.

 

The month of March drags on. The sun has set and there’s a cold flutter of air this high up. Tony doesn’t know how many stories there are until he would hit the ground but it’s certainly enough. He doubts anyone can see him up here, even with the glowing lights of the city, and he’s glad because he doesn’t want to be interrupted. This, as all other things in his life are, is a solo act.

 

The thing is, when you want to end your life this badly, you’re not too scared. There’s a pang of doubt - what if somehow he’s still alive at the bottom, what if everyone knows that he can’t even kill himself correctly? - but mostly it’s serene. If Tony were high, he’d see the colours of the place he lives in - the flashing reds to warn airplanes of their height, the pale turquoise of the billboards and yellowish hues of taxi cab headlights. A horizon of rainbows. Before suicide, the world is black and white.

 

He steps onto the ledge. Life doesn’t flash before your eyes with the exception of Bucky’s inevitable disappointment at seeing Tony’s bloody corpse on the sidewalk, a sad face in a crowd of cameras. And Tony’s face hardens into a hate-filled expression at the thought of the man.

 

“You killed my parents, why shouldn’t you kill me too?” He quips to himself, imagining calloused, sorry hands guiding him to the edge and giving him a final shove over. It’s Bucky’s fault. Sure, he should stop feeling sorry for himself but this isn’t him - he isn’t the reason he wants to die... right?

 

Tony knows that coming off of Xanax can make you more prone to suicidal tendencies. He can blame it on the chemical changes and imbalances in his brain that arose from going sober. He’s read the labels; his eyes have glazed over the internet’s shouting opinions. Some part of him knows that it could really all be down to the medicine, or lack thereof.

 

He wishes he never starting taking it to begin with. “I have nothing to go back to now.” His voice is practically pointless up here.

 

It’s true, it must be - he has nothing. All he will ever have is nothing. He’s not present, not like Steve said, and he doesn’t think he’ll ever get the chance to be. He’ll never really be seen - just a ghost. Just make it real, let it happen.

 

He closes his eyes; rolls up his sleeves because suddenly they’re too tight and he’s warm, pleasantly so, and he’s ready. He’s old enough - he’s had his experiences, both good and bad - and now it’s time to let go.

 

He’s a mere second away from it before his eyes snap open at an unexpected loud sound. He turns around immediately, heart flailing wild and chaotic in his chest, to see someone running toward him, shouting in panicked noise rather than words.

 

Clint. Clint Barton, what is doing here? How did he get in? Tony was sure he’d locked the doors. He swallows a lump in his throat as his friend stomps over to him, visibly and murderously angry.

 

‘What are you doing?’ Clint’s hands cut around messily in the air as he signs to communicate with Tony. God, they haven’t seen each other in what feels like years.

 

Tony, who had learned a little bit of American Sign Language just for him, signs in response. ‘What does it look like?’

 

‘I can read your lips,’ Clint points out with a scowl. Maybe Tony isn’t being clear or accurate enough.

 

“I’m was going to jump until you rudely interrupted me,” he snaps.

 

‘Could you not?’ Clint implores. ‘Jump, I mean?’

 

“That’s a big ask.” Tony rolls his eyes and goes to turn back before an insistent hand is tugging on his arm and he’s falling back. He’s caught and pulled further away from the ledge. He attempts to struggle out of Clint’s hold which tightens in response. “Quit it, that hurts.”

 

Clint lets him go. ‘Stop complaining about everything.’ His expression is stormy. ‘That’s all you ever do, complain. Have you ever stopped to consider that maybe there are things in life that you don’t have to moan about?’

 

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

 

‘If I’m reading your mind correctly, the world is not out to get you. It never was. Not everything is about you.’ Clint throws his arms up in exasperation. ‘Did you ever think about how this might make everyone else feel? What about me?’ He stops abruptly then lets his disappointment show. Tony doesn’t know what to say.

 

Clint beckons for him to come back inside and Tony follows him like a kicked puppy. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go - Tony was going to do it in peace, alone (that’s why he chose his own roof - nobody was meant to come and see him). Maybe this is a sign from somewhere that it wouldn’t have been the right decision.

 

‘I don’t understand,’ Clint signs in frustration as soon as the door closes, ‘why would you want to end your life? I don’t understand.’

 

“I don’t understand how you broke into my penthouse,” Tony grumbles.

 

‘Don’t avoid the question.’

 

“It’s difficult to explain to someone who—“ Tony cuts himself off, not wanting to presume that Clint has the perfect life and he’s never had to be sad about something. More people are suffering than he realises. Tony can only hope Clint’s never had firsthand experience with these feelings.

 

The man doesn’t look impressed after reading Tony’s lips. ‘It really doesn’t have to be. Tell me what’s wrong.’

 

Tony puts a hand over his mouth so Clint can’t see what he’s saying and breathes into it, “I’m so depressed and I love someone I shouldn’t.” He takes his hand away, mimicking biting his nails for a brief moment. “Everybody is moving on with their lives without me. I can’t even get past the starting line.” It’s partially the truth.

 

Clint scoffs. ‘Hello,’ he signs, ‘you’re clearly not alone. I’m your friend.’ The movement of his hands slows into something less agitated and more understanding. ‘You have lots of people who love you.’

 

Tony wants to bite back ‘like who?’ but when he really stops to think about it, his friend is right. Guilt swells up as he thinks about Steve, and what a horrible person he’s been to someone he’s supposed to be good to - to Clint and his parents, hell, even Clint’s kids who are so lovable and innocent and probably don’t understand why Uncle Tony never comes round anymore. He is destroying his own life and that’s because he’s choosing to, not because anyone else is letting him down.

 

‘You were going to leave everyone to deal with your aftermath,’ Clint goes on.

 

Truth is, Tony never bothered to think about what would happen if he had gone through with it - if he had actually jumped and been successful. He’s selfish and saw the world ending is as he would, and that nothing would be important enough to ponder over afterwards. All that had mattered was getting away from everything, and damned be the press and paparazzi who talked of how troubled he was. Damned be Bucky who would soon have his perfect life with Steve.

 

But even Bucky would have to grieve. He wouldn’t have stuck around for so long if he didn’t care about Tony. Hell, he cares about Tony; even if he loves Steve more, Tony is still important to him. How would he feel? What flowers would he put on his lover’s grave? The roses, like Marilyn Monroe received? Tony hadn’t even considered writing a will.

 

“Sorry,” he mutters at last, meaning it.

 

‘Don’t do it again,’ Clint tells him off like a stern mother asking him to clean his room.

 

“Okay,” says Tony like a kid who knows it’s for the best.

 

*

 

_PHONE CALL HISTORY._

_TIME: 01:03am._

_DATE: March 5th 2010._

_ONE CALL LOGGED._

_REPLAY:_

_“I love you, you know.”_

“What? Tony, you don’t know how...  that _works_ .”

_“I know now. I know I always say the things that I really mean, even when I don’t want to. Even when they’re hard.”_

_“Really? So what’s it like being in love with me?”_

_“It’s, uh, it’s chaos. Well, it’s like my brain is awake all the time and it’s a little much. I’m having all these five-star meals and lavish parties surrounded by people I realise I’m lucky to have - and I realise I’m selfish because I just want you. It’s like someone put out the fire in my house. Like I’m driving a car with my seatbelt on and I know I’m going to be fine.”_

_“You don’t sound too happy about this.”_

_“It makes me sick knowing it has to end.”_

_“… That must mean I love you the same.”_

 

*

 

“Well, I won’t pretend to be surprised,” Tony says, kicking a stone between two feet on the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s the middle of the night and of course Tony wasn’t about to ignore Bucky’s texts to come out because they needed to ‘talk’, even after everything. When it’s one in the morning and you end your proper-grammar sentences with full stops, disturbingly sober, you don’t look past that. They both know exactly what’s going to happen now.

 

It should be Tony, really. He can hardly look at the guy, now knowing what he knows. He doesn’t have the energy to be mad, though. Maybe that’s what love unfortunately is - unconditional.

 

Tony’s only comforting thought is that Bucky has no idea about what happened just a few days ago when he was tempted to throw himself off a roof - and he will never know. When their ‘relationship’ has been doomed since the start and ties are about to be completely severed, loading something like that on someone gets you nowhere. Tony doesn’t want to trick the man he loves into staying with him because he’s suicidal (which he thinks he can’t be, anymore, after what Clint said).

 

So he takes a good look at the man who wormed his way into his heart and caused him so much pain. If Tony had never made those January plans with Steve, if he had never set eyes upon Bucky, they wouldn’t be here. He wouldn’t have wanted to off himself, and that’s not a blaming accusation, just an observation lingering in the backdrop. Bucky’s eyes are hardly illuminated and there are sturdy walls built against his irises, refusing to let Tony in, stubborn and cold. For once, it’s troublesome.

 

Maybe Tony’s not in love with him. Maybe it’s that middle section of admiration and friendliness that he mistakes for a casual affair when it’s nothing more than businesslike acquaintanceship - maybe he wants to be Bucky, maybe he wants to live inside him and breathe his air and put a hand around his veins and intestines and wrap himself around his bloody insides. The thought is unexpected and gruesome and gives him doubtful clarity. What is love supposed to be, anyway? What is it supposed to feel like? Can you ever really explain it?

 

“I’m sorry,” Bucky tells him eventually but Tony is quick to refuse this.

 

“I don’t want to hear about that anymore. It’ll drive me crazy if I’m not able to move on. Just get to the point.”

 

“I’m marrying Steve,” he says and with such a sheer amount of certainty that it makes Tony flinch back, “I’m not telling him anything about us. He’s never going to know the truth.”

 

“You’re a horrible person,” Tony snaps in hurt like a child. It’s a lie because Bucky isn’t bad, he’s just damaged and trying to find something to fix his faults. Tony wasn’t the mechanism to help him sleep at night. There is only so much love you can give a tool.

 

Still, Bucky doesn’t argue. “I know.” The walls in his eyes show no signs of breaking down and that’s when Tony knows he’s really in for a hard time and this is his last chance to… what, try to win him over? List off the few reasons they should keep trying? After everything? Tell him he can’t have a healthy relationship with Steve? Tony never even competed with Steve; they were never in the same league.

 

So what does he do? He contemplates saying thanks for the dismal learning experience or maybe just giving him the middle finger but in the end, he can only bring up some useless crap nobody wants to hear. “That night you found yourself on that road,” he gets out, trying to not think of his parents, “what were you really thinking?”

 

Bucky must understand, as pitifully forlorn as he appears now, that Tony’s seeking a straight answer. “I can’t give you what you want to hear,” he admits, “I wish I could give you something that’s meaningful. I want to tell you they died for a reason and it wasn’t just a freak accident.” He takes a breath and struggles to keep talking about it. “It was the fireworks, it was the Fourth of July and they were so loud and… they were like gunshots. They… I don’t remember much between stepping onto the road and waking up the next morning; I don’t even know how I got home. But I’ll never forget those headlights, Tony.”

 

It’s like a lift has been lifted from his chest. It’s weird but for whatever reason, for whatever answers in life he was chasing after, it doesn’t seem to matter much anymore. Maybe there just aren’t any reasons for anything. Maybe life just happens. Maybe he’s supposed to move on already. “Oh,” he says. The lights of life, the lights of death.

 

He wants to live, now. He wants to call Clint and say he’s unbelievably sorry for everything he put his friend through and he wants to spend more time with him and treasure their relationship because it’s something that’s good. He never got around to having dinner with the Barton family and the concept of escaping to the countryside for a while is appealing. He wants to move on there, not in New York where he’s still in love with…

 

“I am annoyingly still in love with you,” Bucky goes on with a comical frown, “I wish I could turn it off.”

 

Tony shrugs. “I tried. It’s forever.”

 

Forever, relatively, is the scariest but most peaceful of things.

 

Too much later, he’s got his wish. Mashed potatoes are pushed across the dining table by the small and eager hands of Clint’s kids. Tony can’t help but smile at that and thank them profusely. The family babble amongst themselves and he is certainly glad, all of a sudden, that he gave himself the chance to eat their soggy little mashed potatoes with a terribly large serving of mayonnaise, that he didn’t fall from the edge of that building. He is grateful to witness these little beings who undoubtably will grow up to be great, true heroes one day.

 

Laura gives her husband a quick, amused glance when he starts scooping about three portions onto his plate without remorse. “After we finish cleaning up,” she says, pointedly nodding to the children and the gravy spilled across the tablecloth with a grin, “we’re going to take a little drive around the countryside to explore. We thought you might like to see what it’s like out here.” Clint reads her lips and beams at the suggestion.

 

Tony knows they’re so at peace that there wouldn’t be another car on the road, and it’s not that he would be afraid of the idea, but rather he’d enjoy feeling like part of the only family in the world. He wishes to abandon New York. He wants to see the new roads. “I’d like that very much,” he says.

 

Later, head propped against the car window, rolling green lullaby hills, there is an unprompted sky that looks like a song. His phone buzzes with a text message and he lazily attempts to read it before he falls asleep.

 

‘Dear Tony,

 

Letting go of someone you love is:

A sleepless brain.

A four-star meal.

A party without guests.

A house on fire.

A car crash.

 

It’s hard, but it isn’t chaos. I would rather call this the end, and in the end I have found a home.

 

Bucky.’


End file.
